The opium poppy, Papaver somniferum, was first grown commercially on British farms in 2002 and is a different species to the common wild red poppy which contains no morphine at all. The owner of this farm in Hampshire has converted a quarter of his 1,000-acre farm to produce poppies. There is a worldwide shortage of morphine, which has traditionally been imported to the West from India and Tasmania, and this has plagued the NHS for several years. Secrecy surrounds the locations where poppies are planted, and farmers are simply required to prepare their land and watch the poppies grow, while the drug company takes care of harvesting and transportation. A spokesman for chemical company Macfarlan Smith, which manufactures the medicine, said: â??It is very important that we are able to source and cultivate an important medicine in this country instead of relying on supplies from elsewhere.â?? Factfile: The seed pod of the opium poppy contains a gummy substance. Opium is produced from this, and both codeine and morphine are derived from opium Morphine is further processed by drug barons to make heroin Afghanistanâ??s poppy fields produced 93 per cent of the worldâ??s opium last year, much of it for the illegal drugs trade The medicinal properties of opium have been known from ancient times, and it was used as a narcotic in European cultures as early as 4,000BC Canon 450D, f5.6,1/640sec,ISO400,250mm.